


I still have your number

by jointvideos



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2019 dan and phil, Alternate Universe, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Phandom - Freeform, Second Chances, Slow Burn, dan is a writer, kinda angsty but sweet, phil is a successful film director, rebuilding relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 18:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20532824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jointvideos/pseuds/jointvideos
Summary: After Dan’s near death experience, he’s given a second chance at life. This second chance is used to go back and try to rebuild the relationship between him and his ex boyfriend, ex best friend, Phil. In 2016, devastating events left something between them changed, but 3 years later Dan is given a chance to fix everything.





	I still have your number

“Dan?”

No response.

“Mr. Howell?”

“What?” Dan looked up, “yeah, I’m sorry, what’s up?”

The doctor smiled. “We’re kinda losing you here, let’s try and pay attention, alright?”

Dan put on his most polite smile and nodded. “Where were we?” His mind was racing.

Dan looked down at his hands, and back at the walls of the hospital room. The room was drab, with no windows and depressing decor. To his right there was a sad looking painting, clearly an attempt to brighten up the room.

Dan glanced back down at his hands and ran his right thumb over his left palm, a habit he’d had to calm his nerves forever. He looked up.

Fake friendly doctor smiled again. “We were discussing how you’ll go about your life once you leave the hospital.” That’s right, Dan thought. Life after the accident.  
2 weeks prior, Dan had been nearly killed in an accident involving falling off a bridge after a bike hit him and knocked him off. It was extremely embarrassing. Especially after he had to watch it happen over and over again on Youtube. As someone who hadn’t uploaded a Youtube video in 3 years, having your return be a clip of you flailing lifelessly into the river wasn’t exactly a great welcome back. The surgeons told him he’d been unconscious for quite a long time after the fall, and if he hadn’t been spotted floating on a large piece of garbage in the river, he might not have made it.

Thank god for London’s disgusting, trash filled rivers.

According to the doctors, Dan had been “very fortunate“, and should be seeing this as a chance to “start over on a clean slate in life”, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. He supposed he WAS lucky, and a part of him wants to take advantage of it.  
Mostly, he just wanted out of this awful, boring hospital.

Normally, with an accident with injuries less severe than others, Dan would’ve been let out a week earlier , but the doctors wanted to keep him a week longer to make sure he was doing okay mentally, and didn’t have a concussion. According to them, Dan should be still trying to comprehend what had happened to him.  
More likely that he was trying to comprehend what exactly he was still doing in here, stuck with doctors who asked him too many questions and who smiled too politely at him. He was sick of it. l But Dan was going stir crazy with being checked on every 10 minutes, and being treated like a child, so when the time came, he answered all the psychologist’s questions just like they wanted him to.

“How’s your mental state?”

“Fine.”

“Do you feel any suicidal tendencies?”

“No.”

“Do you promise to take a few weeks off work and take it easy?”

“Yes.”

And then Dan got the hell out of there.

On the cab ride back to his apartment, Dan looked down at his right arm, which was now the new home of a cast that he was meant to wear for another 4 weeks. That pretty much sucked, but at least it wasn’t his left arm. Maybe he was “lucky” after all. As well as breaking his arm, he had several stitches from the crap in the river cutting him up. That part didn’t suck. Scars could be cool and made people believe you were an interesting person.

When Dan got home, he immediately pulled out his laptop and tried to start on his next article. Turns out, typing with only one hand is harder than you’d think. Years of perfecting his ability to type fast, with emails and scripts and social media, was all gone. It took him ages just to write one sentence.  
He thought back to what the doctor had told him, and reluctantly shut his laptop with a groan.

He pressed his palms into his eyes and screamed loud enough that his neighbors most definitely heard him.

This was going to be a long 3 weeks.

Week one was fine. He slept in each day, took advantage of his time off, and finally caught up on Brooklyn 99. That was all fine. Fine fine fine. One of the activities the psychologist recommended was getting some sort of animal to help to cope with the events of the accident. At last, an excuse to get a pet.

Dan called an Uber, and off he went to a local pet store. The bell rang as he walked in, and was immediately greeted with a worker with bangs, shoulder length black hair, and an apron, along with a name tag that read “Max”.

“How can I help you?” She asked kindly. Dan caught her looking down at his cast. He replied with, “I’m here to pick out a pet.”

The woman smiled. “Well that’s where I come in. What sort of pet are you looking for?” The bell rang again.  
“Oh, sorry. Give me one second,” Macey said and rushed to greet her next customer.

That left Dan to explore the homey little animal shelter. Nearly 3 years ago he had been at the same shop ready to pick out a dog with his boyfriend at the time, Phil. Mere months before everything went to shit. 

He tried his best not to think about that. 

If Dan’s therapist had helped him with anything, (besides telling him he probably had daddy issues) it was how to push out the old memories that he still held onto.

“You’ve gotta attempt to move on,” His therapist had said to him one session, “looking back on the past doesn’t help your present.”

And yeah she was probably right, but letting himself think about Phil every now and then couldn’t be bad right? Wrong. Even after 3 years it still hurt Dan to think about him.

He remembered what the doctor had told him while he was at the hospital, about starting on a clean slate or whatever. Was that supposed to be a sign that he should fix what happened with Phil? Dan almost laughed at the thought. There was no way Phil wanted to see him. He was being crazy. 

_Maybe I do have a concussion, _he thought. _Or maybe it wasn’t so crazy...._

He shook his head, _Nope Nope Nope,_ he thought._ Not today. _Today was meant to be a happy day and so Dan was going to be happy. God knows he needed a win. 

He turned back and gave his full attention Max as she gave him a short tour of the store, before leading Dan to where they housed the cats and kittens. Max let a few of them out of their crates and they crawled towards Dan, meowing loudly.

“_Hello there,” _Dan said in a soft voice. The cat that crawled directly into his lap was a short haired ginger cat, with pretty green eyes. Macey smiled and informed Dan that the cat’s name was Kirby. _Kirby..._dan thought. He was adorable.

For some reason the cat almost reminded him of Phil. Whether that was a good sign or a bad sign, Dan decided that this cat needed a home, and Dan could be the one to provide one for him. 

“He reminds me of Phil.” Dan accidentally said out loud.

“Phil?” Max asked. 

“Yeah,” Dan laughed awkwardly, “my ex.”

Max was silent before she smiled and asked, “Tall, black hair in a quiff, wears glasses?”

Dan looked startled, “Yeah actually, how’d you guess?”

He was not about to mention that despite not seeing Phil for three years, he knew exactly what he looked like and what he changed about himself, thanks to a secret account he made to stalk Phil’s Instagram. He was also not about to mention that he still had Phil’s number, email, and his social media followed on that secret account. Not exactly his proudest moment. 

Definitely not his proudest moment. 

”He was in here a couple weeks prior, picking out a dog.” 

”Oh.” 

He hadn’t expected that to hurt that bad. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. First came TATINOF, then afterwards they were meant to start their own life. Their own life together. Somewhere along the way it had stopped being “Dan’s life” and “Phil’s life”, it was “Our life”. That included finally getting a dog after they moved out of their apartment. A pet meant a forever home, and a forever home meant spending the rest of Dan’s life with his best friend.

It wasn’t as if Dan didn’t try to move on. He’d done the dating app thing, done the old fashioned “will you go out with me?” thing, and even had meaningless one night stands with guys he probably wouldn’t ever see again. After 2 years of that, Dan gave up and stubbornly swore off dating.

They were silent for a while. Max didn’t mind. Dan continued to pet Kirby with his good arm.

“Dan how’d you manage to break your arm anyway?” Max said, breaking the silence that had fallen.

Dan went red. “I was knocked off a bridge into a river in London,” he admitted, “I broke my arm in the fall, and had to get stitches for my other injuries. It totally sucked, but the doctors told me I was ‘Fortunate to be alive’.” 

“You _are _lucky to be alive, Dan,” She laughed. “You basically get a second chance at life.” 

Why did people keep saying that?

Dan left the shop with far too much on his mind. And his arms.

After talking with Max, she helped Dan pick out toys, food, and a bed for Kirby. Despite only having one usable arm, Max shoved everything into several bags, and hung them off Dan’s cast like he was a coat rack. He was going to stop by again a week later to get Kirby, but he decided to buy supplies today. Dan thanked Max, and they exchanged contact info. 

The main thing on Dan’s mind was crazily enough, Phil. After years of trying everything to get him off his mind, one mention of him was enough to keep Phil the only topic occupying his brain. Phil had seemingly enough built a whole new life without Dan. 

Though Dan couldn’t blame him, he’d done the exact same thing. He thought back to what Max said, about Phil coming in to get a dog. It made him sad. Too sad. 

_Phil Phil Phil Phil. _

Dan unlocked his apartment door and stepped inside.

He closed it and leaned against it with a sigh.

Dan knew Max was right. Just like the doctors had been right. He’d been lucky. _Really Lucky. _He had a second chance. So how was he going to use it? 

He decided that he was going to try to rebuild the relationship between him and Phil. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed the first chapter! i haven’t written anything like this in forever, but i wanted to try something out of my comfort zone! stay tuned for the next chapter 😙 
> 
> -anne (jointvideos)


End file.
